Storage of Advertisements in a Personal Account at an Online Service

ABSTRACT

A system for use in storage of advertisements in a personal account at an online service is provided. The online service may be configured to serve data to a client device to cause the client device to display a graphical user interface. The system may include a search interface to receive a search query input by a user and to display search results and one or more advertisements generated from a search engine of the online service in response to the search query, a selector configured to receive a user command to save a selected advertisement in the personal account for later viewing and/or traversal of a hyperlink embedded in the advertisement, and a personal account interface to display a saved advertisement in the personal account.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.12/145,520, filed Jun. 25, 2008, titled STORAGE OF ADVERTISEMENTS IN APERSONAL ACCOUNT AT AN ONLINE SERVICE, the disclosure of which is hereinincorporated by reference in its entirety for all purposes.

BACKGROUND

Advertisements may provide useful information to a user of an onlineservice. For example, in the healthcare context, advertisements may begenerated along with search results by a search engine of ahealth-related online service in response to a health related searchquery. Such advertisements may include links to target information onhealth related goods and services such as books, medical devices,pharmaceuticals, medical services which are related to the healthrelated search query. These advertisements and their linked targetinformation may complement unsponsored search results, by providingimportant information on commercially available goods and services.

One drawback with online advertising, however, is that it is fleeting,disappearing when the user browses to a different website. Thus,advertisement information may be lost unless the user selects theadvertisement during the search session, by clicking an embeddedhyperlink in the advertisement. Alternatively, a user may print out theadvertisement, write the name of the goods or services down, orotherwise attempt to manually record information about theadvertisement, but such manual methods suffer from the drawback thatthey are time intensive and do not retain a record of any content thatis linked by hyperlink to the advertisement. The fleeting nature ofonline advertising is a barrier to its potential effectiveness as aninformation source for users, and as a revenue generation tool foradvertisers.

SUMMARY

A system for use in storage of advertisements in a personal account atan online service is provided. The online service may be configured toserve data to a client device to cause the client device to display agraphical user interface. The system may include a search interface toreceive a search query input by a user and to display search results andone or more advertisements generated from a search engine of the onlineservice in response to the search query, a selector configured toreceive a user command to save a selected advertisement in the personalaccount for later viewing and/or traversal of a hyperlink embedded inthe advertisement, and a personal account interface to display a savedadvertisement in the personal account.

This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in asimplified form that are further described below in the DetailedDescription. This Summary is not intended to identify key features oressential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended tobe used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter. Furthermore,the claimed subject matter is not limited to implementations that solveany or all disadvantages noted in any part of this disclosure.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a schematic view of an embodiment of a system for use instorage of advertisements in a personal account at an online service.

FIG. 2 is a schematic view an advertisement addition screen of agraphical user interface displayed on a client device of the system ofFIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a schematic view of a scrapbook pane of the personal accountinterface of the graphical user interface displayed on the client deviceof the system of FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 is a schematic view of an embodiment of a method for storingadvertisements in a personal account at an online service.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 illustrates a system 100 for use in storage of advertisements ina personal account 108 at an online service 102 executed on a server101. The online service 102 may, for example, be a health informationservice configured to provide health related search results and onlineadvertisements to a user in response to a user search query, and toenable the user to store the advertisements in the personal account forlater viewing and click-through.

The online service 102 is configured to serve data to a client device104 to cause the client device 104 to display a graphical user interface(GUI) 106. The GUI 106 may include a search interface 118 configured toreceive a search query input by a user via a search query input tool120. The search query may be transmitted from the search interface to asearch engine 112, which generates and returns search results 122 andone or more advertisements 124 to the search interface 118. It will beappreciated that the search engine 112 is configured with a web searchmodule 112A configured to search hyperlinked web resources indexed byweb crawlers and return search results 122, and also includes anadvertisement matching module 112B configured to search candidateadvertisements 146 and return one or more matching advertisements 124for display on the search interface 118. The search interface 118, inturn, is configured to display the search results 122 generated by theweb search module of the search engine 112 and one or moreadvertisements 124 generated by the advertisement matching module of thesearch engine 112 of the online service 102 in response to the searchquery.

The advertisements 124 displayed on search interface 118 and may be, forexample, banner advertisements 124A that include an image element and ahyperlink to linked content, or sponsored links 124B, which are textadvertisements that include a text element and a hyperlink to linkedcontent. The advertisements 124 may be served from a database ofcandidate advertisements 146 stored within online service data store110, or from third party advertising servers, for example. The linkedcontent may be a web page or other web resource served by a third partyserver, which may, for example, be operated by an advertiser that hasplaced the advertisement 124.

The GUI 106 may further include an advertisement selector 126corresponding to each of the plurality of advertisements 124, which maybe in the form of a hyperlink, a button, etc. The selector 126 may beconfigured to receive a user command to save a selected advertisement asa saved advertisement 136 in the personal account 108 for later viewingand/or traversal of the hyperlink embedded in the saved advertisement136.

Selection of the selector 126 may be configured to cause the display ofa personal account interface 132 served by a personal account managementmodule of the online service 102. To ensure secure access to the onlineservice 102, a login screen 130 may be displayed as part of the personalaccount interface 132. If the user is not already securely logged intothe online service 102, the selector 126 may be configured to cause thedisplay of the login screen 130 for the personal account prior todisplay of an advertisement addition screen 128, discussed below. Thelogin screen 130 may be configured to enable the user to securely login,for example, by inputting a username and password. It will beappreciated that the login screen 130 may be served by a security module116 of the online service 102. The security module 116 further may beconfigured to display a security alert that warns of an exit of aprivacy secured website hosted by the online service, for example, whenthe user selects a hyperlink embedded in a saved advertisement in thepersonal account displayed in a scrapbook pane 138 of the personalaccount interface, as discussed below.

Once the user has successfully logged in, the personal account interface132 is configured to enable the user to save advertisements in thepersonal account 108, and to view saved advertisements 136. The personalaccount interface 132 may include an advertisement addition screen 128for saving a selected advertisement 124. The advertisement additionscreen 128 may be configured to receive metadata to be saved with theadvertisement in the online service data store 110. An example of anadvertisement addition screen 128 is illustrated in FIG. 2, discussedbelow.

The metadata that may be input into the advertisement addition screen128 may include a title, a textual description, and/or keyword tagsassociated with the advertisement, for example. Other metadata such asadvertiser name, product name, price, validity period, etc., may also begathered by the advertisement addition screen 128, as appropriate. Itwill be appreciated that some metadata may be received as user inputinto the advertisement addition screen, and other metadata may beprogrammatically derived from embedded sources within the advertisement124. Another form of metadata that may be associated with eachadvertisement is a link to one or more personal records 144 or otherinformation within the personal account 108, thereby enabling the savedadvertisements 136 to be linked to existing records in the personalaccount. These links may be established manually by the user via theadvertisement addition screen, or programmatically according to presetlogic at the online service, and enable the saved advertisement to beredisplayed to the user when the user views the linked records in thepersonal account, for example. It will be appreciated that the metadatainputted or derived in this manner may be used, for example to organize,search, and present saved advertisements 136 via the personal accountinterface 132, as discussed below in relation to FIG. 2.

Following entry of the metadata via advertisement addition screen 128,the advertisement 124 may be saved as a saved advertisement 136 in ascrapbook database 134 of the personal account 108 by the personalaccount management module 114. It will be appreciated that the savedadvertisements 136 may include saved banner advertisements 140 and savedsponsored links 142, as appropriate, corresponding to the types ofadvertisements 124 that are selected to be saved. Further, in someembodiments, the personal account interface 132 may also be configuredto receive a user command to save the search results 122 as saved searchresults 148 in the personal account 108 on the online service data store110. This user command may be received, for example, via a save searchresult selector 125 displayed on the search interface 118.

To enable a user to view saved advertisements 136, the personal accountinterface 132 may include a scrapbook pane 138 configured to display thesaved advertisement 136 that are saved in the scrapbook database 134 ofthe personal account, including saved banner advertisements 140 andsaved sponsored links 142. The scrapbook pane 138 may be accessed, forexample, by selection of one of the selectors 126 and negotiating thelogin screen 130 and advertisement addition screen 128, for example, orby selecting a display scrapbook link 121 on the search interface 118,or by other suitable access mechanism.

As discussed above, the saved advertisements 136 may be organized,searched, and presented via the scrapbook pane 138, based on themetadata stored in the scrapbook database 134 with the savedadvertisements 136. Therefore, it will be appreciated that searching,sorting, and filtering tools may be included on the scrapbook pane 138for selecting the saved advertisements 136 to be displayed. It will alsobe appreciated that the scrapbook pane 138 may be configured toselectively display saved search results 148, if desired by the user. Anexample scrapbook pane 138 is illustrated in FIG. 3, discussed below.

In addition to the saved advertisements 136 and saved search results148, the personal account 108 may also be configured to store a user'spersonal records 144, which may be portable personal health recordscontaining data regarding a user's health history, diagnoses,prescriptions, etc. It will be appreciated that only the user and otherauthorized users, such as authorized healthcare professionals or familymembers, may have access to the personal account 108.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example instance of the advertisement additionscreen 128, configured to be displayed upon selection of selector 126and login of a user, and configured to receive metadata related to theselected advertisement. The advertisement addition screen 128 mayinclude a title field 152 for receiving input of a title of theadvertisement, and a URL field 154 for receiving input of a URL of theembedded hyperlink in the advertisement. The title and URL of theselected advertisement 124 may be programmatically detected whenselector 126 is selected based on metadata embedded in the selectedadvertisement 124, and may be displayed in the title field 152 and URLfield 154. Alternatively, the user may input or manually edit theprefilled title and URL. The advertisement addition screen 128 mayfurther include a description field 156 configured to receive a textualdescription of the advertisement from the user. The advertisementaddition screen may further include a tag input field 160 for receivinguser input of keyword tags to be associated with the selectedadvertisement 124. For convenience, a tag menu 158 populated withexisting tags that have been used with other saved advertisements 136 inthe scrapbook database 134 of the personal account 108 may be displayed,and the user may click on an existing tag in the tag menu 158 to add thetag to the tag input field 160.

Once the user has input the desired metadata into the various fields ofadvertisement addition screen 128, the user can save the selectedadvertisement by clicking an OK button 161. This causes the personalaccount interface 132 to send the metadata and advertisement 124 to thepersonal account management module at online service 102, which in turnsaves the advertisement and metadata in personal account 108 on onlineservice data store 110. The scrapbook pane 138 may be displayedfollowing the save operation, or alternatively, the search interface 118may be displayed, if desired.

FIG. 3 shows an example instance of the scrapbook pane 138. Thescrapbook pane 138 may be configured to present a list 168 of scrapbookdatabase contents, including one or more saved advertisements 136 suchas saved banner advertisements 140, saved sponsored links 142, and savedsearch results 148. The list 168 may be filtered by tags that have beendefined by the user, via tag input field 160 of FIG. 2, for example. Toaccomplish this, the scrapbook pane may include a list filter tool 177,configured to filter the contents of list 168 to include only savedadvertisements 136 with tags that match user specified tags. It will beappreciated that the user may select tags for matching by clicking onthe programmatically generated tag list 178 in the list filter tool 177,thereby toggling on and off tags to be matched. The specified tags maybe underlined in the tag list 178, when selected for matching. An “ALLTAGS” selector may be included in the tag list to select all tags formatching. It will be appreciated that the list filter tool 177 mayalternatively or additionally include selectors for specifying otherparameters for filtering list 168, such as whether to include or excludesaved banner advertisements 140, saved sponsored links 142, or savedsearch results 148 in the list 168. In other embodiments, the listfilter tool 177 may also include a date range selector to further filterthe results by a user specified date.

The list 168 may be sorted by date 172, embedded hyperlink 174, and/ormatching tags 176 of the saved advertisements 136, which are illustratedas headers in columns of the list 168. It will be appreciated that theseheaders are configured to enable a user to click on a selected header toinput an ascending sort or descending sort command based on the datatype featured in the selected header.

Regarding the content of list 168, for each saved advertisement 136 inlist 168, a date on which the advertisement was added to the scrapbookdatabase is listed in the date column. In the tag column, user specifiedtags associated with the advertisement are displayed. In the hyperlink174 column, for saved textual advertisements and saved sponsored links,a title with an embedded hyperlink 174 is listed, along with the textualdescription for the saved advertisement, if any has been entered viadescription field 156. For saved banner advertisements, an image with anembedded hyperlink may be displayed. Further, type and source metadata170 regarding the item type (e.g. product, article, web resource, etc.)and source (e.g., retailer, institute, healthcare provider website,etc.) is displayed, which may be gathered from metadata embedded in theadvertisement itself. For saved search results, a title and URL may belisted, as shown.

It will be appreciated that the user may choose to traverse a hyperlink174 in a saved advertisement displayed in the list 168, in order totraverse to linked content to which the hyperlink points. In thismanner, the advertisement may remain effective over a period of timebeyond the initial impression in the search interface 118, since theadvertisement may be saved and later may be displayed and receive aclick-through by the user. Thus, in addition to offering convenience toa user, such an approach may contribute to the click through rates andoverall effectiveness of an advertisement.

The user interface in FIG. 3 may also be configured to enable the userto take additional actions on the saved advertisements. For example, theuser may edit metadata associated with a saved advertisement byactuating an edit selector 180 or delete a saved advertisement byactuating a delete selector 181. Further, the user may send a savedadvertisement out to be shared with others by actuating a send toselector 182, which may cause a send interface to be displayed fortransmitting one or more of the saved advertisements to a recipient. Thesend interface may be configured to receive a personal message from theuser to send to the recipient along with the saved advertisement. Theadvertisement may be sent to the recipient, for example, by transmittingthe advertisement to a secure personal account of the recipient on theonline service. Alternatively, the advertisement may be sent via secureemail to the recipient, for example. A delete all selector 183 may alsobe provided to enable a user to delete all saved advertisements 136 andsaved search results 148 in the list 168.

FIG. 4 shows one embodiment of a method 200 for storing advertisementsin a personal account of an online service. The method may beimplemented using the hardware and software components of the systemsdescribed above, or by other suitable hardware and software. Thus, forexample, the method may be implemented at an online service executed ona server, the online service being configured to serve data to a clientdevice to cause the client device to display a graphical user interface.As a more specific example, the online service may be a healthinformation service configured to provide health related information viaa search engine and to store personal health records in the personalaccount.

As illustrated at 202, the method may include receiving a search queryinput by the user at a search interface of the graphical user interface.At 204, the method may further include displaying on the searchinterface search results and one or more advertisements generated from asearch engine of the online service in response to the search query. Theadvertisement may be selected from among at least two candidateadvertisements based on contents of the personal health account. Forexample, the advertisement may be selected based on other savedadvertisements or saved search results in the personal account. It willbe appreciated that the advertisement may be a banner advertisement or asponsored link, which is a textual advertisement. Therefore, theadvertisement may include an image element and a hyperlink element, or atext element and a hyperlink.

At 206, the method may include receiving a user command, via a selectoron the search interface, to save a selected advertisement for laterviewing of the advertisement and/or traversal of a hyperlink embedded inthe selected advertisement. At 208, if the user is not securely loggedinto the personal account at the online service, the method may includedisplaying a login screen to allow the user to log into the user'spersonal account, prior to display of an advertisement addition screen.At 210, the method may include, in response to receiving the usercommand at 206, displaying an advisement addition screen.

At 212, the method may include receiving metadata input by the user viathe advertisement addition screen. At 214, the method may include savingthe metadata with the selected advertisement in the scrapbook database.The metadata may include one or more of a title, a textual description,and keyword tags, or other suitable metadata as described above, and maybe alternatively received via a suitable interface other than anadvertisement addition screen. At 216, the method may include saving theselected advertisement in the personal account. The selectedadvertisement may, for example, be saved in a scrapbook database of thepersonal account.

At 218, the method may include displaying one or more savedadvertisements on a scrapbook pane of a personal account interface ofthe graphical user interface. The saved advertisements as displayed maybe, for example, in the form of a banner advertisement or sponsoredlink, as described above, and thus may include an image element and ahyperlink, or a text element and a hyperlink. The hyperlink in a savedadvertisement may point to linked content specified by the advertiser.Thus, by clicking on a saved advertisement displayed in the scrapbookpane, a user may browse to linked content specified by the advertiser.

At 220, the method may further include sending one or more savedadvertisements to a recipient via the scrapbook pane of the personalaccount interface. The advertisement may be sent to the recipient, forexample, by transmitting the advertisement to a secure personal accountof the recipient on the online service. Alternatively, the advertisementmay be sent via secure email to the recipient, for example.

The systems and methods described above may be utilized by a user tostore an online advertisement in a personal account of an onlineservice, for later retrieval. The advertisements may be viewed, edited,shared, or clicked through at a later time convenient for the user,thereby providing a convenient manner for the user to utilize theadvertisements and potentially contributing to the efficacy of theadvertisement for the advertiser.

It will be appreciated that the computing devices described hereintypically include a processor and associated volatile and non-volatilememory, and are configured to execute programs stored in non-volatilememory using portions of volatile memory and the processor. As usedherein, the term “program” refers to software or firmware componentsthat may be executed by, or utilized by, one or more computing devicesdescribed herein, and is meant to encompass individual or groups ofexecutable files, data files, libraries, drivers, scripts, databaserecords, etc. It will be appreciated that computer-readable media may beprovided having program instructions stored thereon, which uponexecution by a computing device, cause the computing device to executethe methods described above and cause operation of the systems describedabove. The methods described herein may be performed in the orderdescribed, but are not so limited, as it will be appreciated by thoseskilled in the art that one or more steps of the method may be performedprior to, or after other steps, in alternative embodiments.

It will also be appreciated that the various components of the systemprovided herein may communicate directly or via a communication network,which may be or include a wide area network (WAN), a local area network(LAN), a global network such as the Internet, a telephone network suchas a public switch telephone network, a wireless communication network,a cellular network, an intranet, or the like, or any combinationthereof.

Further, although the embodiments illustrated herein have been describedas storing the saved advertisements on the personal account at theonline service data store, it will be appreciated that in otherembodiments, the saved advertisements may be saved in on the user clientdevice in a manner that is linked to the personal account. For example,the saved advertisements may be stored in a cookie stored on the userclient device.

In addition, although the advertisements are described in the aboveembodiments as being selected and served in response to a user searchquery, it will be also appreciated that the advertisements may be servedbased on other models, such as an advertisement that is served based onthe content of a web page that is viewed, or a non-contextualadvertisement, etc. Further, while the online service is described aboveas being a health related information service in one embodiment, itshould be understood that a wide variety other types of online servicesare contemplated. For example, the online service may be a televisionservice configured to broadcast television programs and advertisementsto the user client device, and the television advertisements may beconfigured to be saved by the user.

Finally, although a single user client device is depicted above, it willbe appreciated that multiple user client devices may be provided, whichare linked to the same personal account. Thus, in one use case scenario,a user may view and save an advertisement with a first user clientdevice, such as a personal computer, and then later access the savedadvertisement from a second user client device, such as a web-enabledmobile telephone.

It should be understood that the embodiments herein are illustrative andnot restrictive, since the scope of the invention is defined by theappended claims rather than by the description preceding them, and allchanges that fall within metes and bounds of the claims, or equivalenceof such metes and bounds thereof are therefore intended to be embracedby the claims.

1. A system for use in storage of advertisements in a personal account at an online information service, the system comprising a server that includes a processor configured to execute instructions for the online information service held in memory of the server, the online information service being configured to serve data to a client device to cause the client device to display a graphical user interface comprising: a search interface configured to receive a search query input by a user and to display search results and one or more advertisements generated from a search engine in response to the search query; a selector configured to receive a user command to save a selected advertisement in the personal account for later viewing of the selected advertisement, the personal account configured to store the selected advertisement and metadata linking the stored selected advertisement to one or more portable personal records for the user; and a personal account interface configured to display a saved advertisement in the personal account, wherein the saved advertisement is displayed when the user views one of the one or more portable personal records that is linked to the saved advertisement.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the selector is configured to cause the display of an advertisement addition screen configured to receive metadata to be saved with the advertisement.
 3. The system of claim 2, wherein the link from the saved advertisement to the one or more portable personal records is established manually by receiving user input from the user to establish the link via the advertisement addition screen.
 4. The system of claim 2, wherein the link from the saved advertisement to the one or more portable personal records is established programmatically according to preset logic at the online service.
 5. The system of claim 2, wherein the metadata includes one or more of a title, a textual description, and keyword tags.
 6. The system of claim 1, wherein the saved advertisement includes a hyperlink configured to be traversed by the user.
 7. The system of claim 1, wherein the saved advertisement includes an image element and/or a text element.
 8. The system of claim 1, wherein the saved advertisement is a sponsored link, text advertisement, or banner advertisement.
 9. The system of claim 1, wherein the online service is a health information service configured to provide health related information via the search engine and to store personal health information in the personal account.
 10. The system of claim 1, wherein the personal account interface is configured to display a list of saved advertisements in a scrapbook pane, the scrapbook pane including a filter tool configured to filter the saved advertisements included in the list based on keyword tags.
 11. A method for storing advertisements in a personal account of a user at an online service executed on a server, the online service being configured to serve data to a client device to cause the client device to display a graphical user interface, the method comprising: receiving a search query input by the user at a search interface of the graphical user interface; displaying on the search interface search results and one or more advertisements generated from a search engine of the online service in response to the search query; receiving a user command, via a selector on the search interface, to save a selected advertisement in the personal account for later viewing of the selected advertisement, the personal account configured to store the selected advertisement and metadata linking the selected advertisement to one or more portable personal records for the user; saving the selected advertisement in the personal account; and displaying one or more saved advertisements in a personal account interface of the graphical user interface, wherein the saved advertisement is displayed when the user views one of the one or more portable personal records that is linked to the saved advertisement.
 12. The method of claim 11, further comprising receiving user input manually establishing the link from the saved advertisement to the one or more portable personal records via the advertisement addition screen.
 13. The method of claim 11, further comprising programmatically establishing the link from the saved advertisement to the one or more portable personal records according to preset logic at the online service.
 14. The method of claim 11, wherein the saved advertisement includes a hyperlink configured to be traversed by the user.
 15. The method of claim 11, further comprising: in response to receiving the user command, displaying an advisement addition screen; and receiving a metadata input by the user via the advertisement addition screen; and saving the metadata with the selected advertisement in a database.
 16. The method of claim 15, wherein the metadata includes one or more of a title, a textual description, and keyword tags.
 17. The method of claim 11, further comprising, sending saved advertisements to a recipient, via the personal account interface.
 18. The method of claim 11, wherein the online service is a health information service configured to provide health related information via the search engine and to store personal health records in the personal account.
 19. The method of claim 11, wherein the saved advertisement includes an image element and/or a test element.
 20. A method for storing advertisements into a personal account of a user at an online health service executed on a server, the online health service being configured to serve data to a client device to cause the client device to display a graphical user interface, the method comprising: receiving a search query input by the user at a search interface of a graphical interface; displaying on the search interface search results and one or more advertisements generated from a search engine of the online service in response to the search query; receiving a user command, via a selector on the search interface, to save a selected advertisement in the personal account for later viewing of the selected advertisement, the personal account configured to store the selected advertisement and metadata linking the stored selected advertisement to one or more portable personal records for the user; in response to the user command, displaying an advertisement addition screen; receiving metadata input by the user via the advertisement addition screen; saving the selected advertisement and metadata in a database of the personal account; and displaying one or more saved advertisements in a personal account interface of the graphical user interface, wherein the saved advertisement is displayed when the user views one of the one or more portable personal records that is linked to the saved advertisement. 